


Some Disassembly Required

by ShinSolo



Category: 30 Seconds to Mars
Genre: Gen, Post Christmas, Superstition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:59:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinSolo/pseuds/ShinSolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curiously, you pick up the present and weigh it in your hand, trying to guess its contents without opening it. And no matter how many times you turn it over between your fingers, you are still unable to find a single sign as to whom it belonged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Disassembly Required

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Something Wrapped"

When you’re born in Louisiana, it is hard not to be superstitious.  You find yourself shivering when you hear owls screech before sunset, a fear of being the next in a passing hearse guaranties you are always going to be wearing at least one clothing item that buttons, and you flip every coin on the dresser to heads before you slip them into your pocket no matter how big of a hurry you might be in.   And no matter how busy you are, or how tired, you cannot bare even the thought of leaving the Christmas tree up past the 31st.

 

One by one, you take off the silver, gold, and glittery ornaments and left over candy canes, and sort them into two piles – broken and at least halfway intact.  You unravel the electric lights, pick up all the left over scraps of snowflake wrapping paper and ribbons from around the room, and slowly begin taking off each of the trees artificial limbs with as much care and respect as you could muster after over a week of fake cheer and holiday well wishing.  But when you roll up the blanket from where the tree had once stood, you notice something that catches your eye, a small box wrapped in dark blue paper, a Christmas gift that had gone completely unnoticed and been forgotten.

 

Curiously, you pick up the present and weigh it in your hand, trying to guess its contents without opening it.  The entire thing cannot be any larger than a deck of cards, yet seemed unusually heavy for its size. And no matter how many times you turn it over between your fingers, you are still unable to find a single sign as to whom it belonged.

 

You cannot help but wonder what could possibly be inside of the box, and just what the sapphire paper is concealing.

 

Maybe it is some kind of item of jewelry, or one of those tiny novelty picture frames like the ones Matt used to keep in his bunk of Libby while they were on tour.  You even consider that it might be some kind of new high-tech camera that someone had intended for Shannon, or quite possibly it really was just a deck of cards, like the kind a fan had given Tomo once with little different colored pot leaves counting out the numbers in place of spades, diamonds, hearts, and cloves.

 

The last thought makes you laugh and you absent mindedly pick at the end triangle fold, wondering who would actually take so much care to wrap such a small item so precisely – not even the gift you had had wrapped for you at the gift counter at Saks Fifth Avenue for your mother had been this perfect, and those ladies wrapped presents for a living.

 

Had it been machine wrapped?  And if so, what kinds of gifts were wrapped by machines?  The only two things that came to your mind were mass produced pens with the Lionsgate logo on the side and shitty cherry flavored holiday chocolate.

 

You sigh, toss the box onto the couch with a thud, and return to your task of ridding the living room of any and all traces of holiday spirit, entirely forgetting about the mysterious box.

 

It was not until several hours later, after you had already hid all of the now tacky green and red wreaths, tinsel, and other decorations in the attic, vacuumed up as much glitter as you could out of the carpet, and called Tomo to see if he was still coming over for New Years, that the box was once again discovered, only this time by a different Leto.

 

“What’s this?”  Shannon asks, shaking the box near his ear and then turning it over in the palm of his hand.  “Eh, probably just more of those stupid Post-It notes with the ABC Productions logo on them like we got last year.”

 

He shrugged and dropped the box, unopened, into the trashcan on his way into the kitchen.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> And before you ask . . . No, I don't know what's in the box. My prompt was "Something Wrapped" and when you have writers block, figuring out WHAT is wrapped is just too much work.
> 
> Written 12/30/2007.


End file.
